


Connor Murphy: Professional Heartbreaker

by EmeraldAshes



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Connor Deserves Happiness, M/M, Tree facts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-01 22:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11495754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldAshes/pseuds/EmeraldAshes
Summary: "Go talk to your crush" is kind of a pathetic therapy assignment, but it's not like waiting around for people to hit on him has worked out for Connor. At this point, he almost wants to get rejected just so he isn't the heartbreaking asshole this time...Besides, Evan Hansen is kind of hot.





	Connor Murphy: Professional Heartbreaker

“Why am I always the asshole?” Connor Murphy flung himself into the hard, plastic chair at the counseling center.

Alana, the grad student who’d been stuck dealing with him since last semester, looked up from her notes. “Would you like to expand upon that?”

Connor crossed his arms, glowering at her. “Oh, just another chapter in the story of Connor Murphy: Professional Heartbreaker.”

“Were you dating someone new?”—Alana smoothed the braided bun at the back of her head, although it looked perfectly neat before the motion—“You didn’t mention that last session.”

“Nothing was happening last session. We went on one fucking date.”

Alana nodded, jotting something down on her clipboard. That used to piss Connor off, but after getting to know her better, he sometimes wondered if she did that during regular conversation. She said, “Do you think ‘heartbreaker’ might be a slight exaggeration?”

“Not from the way he went on about it afterwards. Twelve fucking texts of trying to talk me into being into him. I didn’t even fucking respond, and he wrote a whole fucking essay. That’s needy, right? Kind of pathetic, really. Maybe I dodged a bullet.”

_“Connor.”_ When she used that tone, Alana reminded him of his mother. He had a lot of issues with his mother.

Connor snapped, “Right, yeah, don’t demonize people just because I feel shitty about hurting them. Whatever. I just…I’m so fucking sick of this. This happens every time.”

Alana tapped her pen against the paper as she thought. “Could you go into more detail about what happens?”

“Somebody flirts with me, and I think, ‘This is it,’ y’know?”

Alana frowns and shakes her head slightly. “I don’t know.”

“I’m twenty-one and have never had a relationship last past three dates.”

“And you want a long-term relationship?”

“I want to fall in love.” Connor let his hair fall in front of his face. He snapped the plastic bracelet on his wrist, one of the few coping mechanisms that Alana had reluctantly labeled ‘healthy.’ It was better than the cutting, at least.

“I understand,” Alana said softly. “That’s perfectly normal, Connor. Lots of people your age haven’t fallen in love yet.”

“You’re two years older than me. Don’t give me that ‘people your age’ bullshit.”

Alana giggled, but quickly stifled it. “Alright. You were saying that someone is interested in you, and you get excited.”

“Yeah, I guess. So I start thinking this is gonna be some big thing, and I get caught up in my head. It’s all about ‘flirt back, be cool, don’t fuck it up…’ And then after a date or a kiss or maybe a hook-up, I realize that I don’t even fucking like them. So I back out, and it becomes this whole stupid thing. I’ve never had a boyfriend, but I’ve got at least 10 people wandering around campus who act like my spurned exes. One guy actually dove into a fountain to avoid me.”

“That seems…extreme.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, that’s Jared Kleinman.”

Alana hummed in agreement; she probably knew him. “What happens when _you_ pursue someone?”

“What?”

“When you’re the first to initiate, is it mostly the same?”

Connor picked at his cuticles, a habit that the nail-painting was supposed to stop. “Oh. Yeah. I don’t, uh, really do that.”

Alana raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“I dunno. Usually I’m not that into people, or I’m at work, or they’re at work. Or sometimes I’m just a fucking coward.”

Alana’s pen was poised to start writing.

“I’m taking Botany to fulfill this science req. I thought it would be easy, and it’s really not fucking easy, but anyway, there’s this guy…Evan. He’s attractive, I guess. He’s got these freckles…He sits in the middle, doesn’t really talk to anyone but gives these crazy in-depth answers to the prof. It’s kind of cute to see him get so into it. Then I saw him in Spring Awakening last month—”

“You went to a school event?” Alana’s eyes were wide, her tone caught between delight, disbelief, and fascination.

Connor glared at her. “Not because I wanted to. Zoe had the lead role, which was awkward as hell because it was all sex and masturbation and gyrating. And there was Evan, in the last row of the chorus, _gyrating._ After that, I basically think sex every time I see him. I had a big-ass crush by the time the musical ended. And you know what I did? Absolutely fucking nothing. How pathetic is that?”

Alana made another note on her pad. “We’ve talked about not putting yourself down.”

“Just…Jesus Christ. I couldn’t even say, ‘Good job in the musical’ the next day. And then it was a week later, and complimenting him would be weird as shit.” His pinkie finger’s cuticle started bleeding. He moved on to the next finger.

“Would it?”

“Don’t pretend you’re a space alien, Alana. It doesn’t work on me.”

Her voice was utterly dry. “Foiled again.”

“I know you have opinions, and you’re basically my only friend, which is pathetic—”

Alana set down her notepad, making eye contact. “You’re not pathetic.”

Connor ran a hand through his hair, groaning. “What the hell should I do?”

The notepad is back in her hands in a moment. “What do you think you should do?”

Connor gave her a dead-eyed stare, the kind that pissed off Larry and immediately pushed his mom into stress baking.

Alana breathed deeply. “I get the impression that you would like to pursue Evan.”

Connor nodded.

“Then do it.”

Connor continued staring. The secret was to blink as rarely as possible. “ _How?”_

Alana returned the stare. “Talk to him.”

**Day One**

“Hey,” Connor said as he passed Evan’s desk.

The poor guy looked like he was going to pass out. His freckles popped out of his face as it paled, and his carefully-combed hair seemed to stand on end. “H-hi?”

Connor strode to the back of the classroom and contemplated how he was fucking doomed.

**Day Three**

Connor arrived ten minutes before class, at least twenty minutes earlier than his usual arrival time, and stole the seat of the girl who sat directly behind Evan. He knew that this would piss off said girl and everyone else who ended up dislodged from their usual seats. They could all go fuck themselves. Change was _good._

Evan was already in his seat, staring down at his planner, when Connor sat down.

Connor attempted small talk. “How’d you break your arm?”

Evan looked down at his cast, startled, as if it had suddenly appeared. “I, uh, fell from a tree.”

“That’s the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

Connor officially failed at small talk.

Evan laughed, with slightly more enthusiasm than politeness required. “Y-yeah, I know.”

The stutter was weirdly endearing, and Connor hated his life. He valiantly forged onward. “What the hell were you doing in a tree?”

“Climbing it?”—Evan cleared his throat—“Climbing it. I, um, like trees?”

The professor began lecturing before Connor could get around to…Actually, he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

**Day Four**

“He likes trees,” Connor announced as he plunked himself down in front of Alana.

Alana’s expression remained impassive, like her patients always started impromptu sessions on Saturdays while she studied in the campus’ off-brand Starbucks. Maybe they did. What the fuck did Connor know?

“In what way does he like trees?” Alana asked. “Aesthetically? From a scientific viewpoint?”

Connor snatched up his caramel macchiato and stood. “I’ll find out.”

**Day Six**

Evan blinked up at Connor, gripping his pencil tightly. “I just…like them? Parks are c-cool, kind of soothing, I guess? D-did you know that trees are linked to a decrease in crime? There was a study, and…you don’t care about that. Sorry.”

Connor physically waved away Evan’s worries, like they were irritating flies. “Nah, I’m invested now. Continue.”

**Day Eight**

Evan swiped through his phone, showing Connor like thirty pictures of trees while Connor hovered over him, one hand on the brunette’s shoulder.

“It’s hard to get a sense of scale in the photos, but this one is 350 feet tall!” Evan turned to look at Connor, his excited face only a couple inches away. Connor didn’t answer at first, badly distracted. There was a pause.

Connor almost kissed him, which would have been a fucking disaster.

Then, Evan flushed and turned back to his phone, continuing to ramble about redwoods. At this rate, Connor would develop a Pavlovian boner for plant-talk, which would make Botany class really damned uncomfortable.

**Day Fourteen**

“Have you considered connecting with him outside of class?” Alana asked at their next appointment.

“Considered? Sure.”

“The idea _was_ to pursue him, wasn’t it?”

Connor toyed with the rubber bracelet on his wrist. “That was the idea, yeah.”

Alana nodded. “So…”

“I don’t think I can break up with Evan. He’s sensitive.”

Alana tilted her head slightly, eyes boring into him. “Based on your retellings, several of the people you’ve broken up with have been sensitive. How is this different?”

Connor shrugged. “It just is.”

“Why?”

“Because.” He snapped the bracelet, a small punishment for getting pissed off at someone who didn’t deserve it yet again. Then he took it off, tearing at it.

“Because what?” Alana smiled. She always smiled when he was being an asshole. Connor suspected she liked the challenge, which was kind of fucked up.

“Because I fucking like him, alright?!” Connor threw the bracelet at her.

It bounced harmlessly off her padded armrest, and she watched without comment.

Connor sunk in on himself. “I’m hopeless.”

“I don’t know about that”—Alana plucked the bracelet from the carpet at her feet and held it out to Connor—“I have quite a bit of hope for you.”

**Day Fifteen**

Connor sat in the seat behind Evan. It was his fucking seat now, he had claimed it, and he would bite anyone who tried to take it from him. It took five minutes of tree-related conversation before Connor finally grew some balls and said, “We should hang out sometime.”

Evan dropped his phone, then frantically scooped it up from the floor. Evan’s phone screen had been flawless before, but now a small crack ran along the upper right corner.

Connor winced. “It’s cool if you don’t want to.”

“I want to!” Evan shouted, drawing the stares of their classmates.

It only took glaring down one girl for the rest of the class to go back to minding their own damned business.

“I want to,” Evan said more softly. “We could, uh…We could…”

“I hear there’s a pretty cool park outside of town. We could check it out.” Connor spoke casually, like he hadn’t been planning this for two weeks.

“Y-yeah. That sounds really, really good”—Evan’s growing smile suddenly disappeared—“I, I can’t really…I don’t have a car.”

“I do.”

“C-cool.”

**Day Eighteen**

It was 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning, and Connor had woken up of his own volition to go to a park. He wouldn’t have fucking believed it six months ago, but he was also hooking up with _Jared Kleinman_ six months ago, so he had clearly been making some questionable life decisions.

The ride over had been peaceful. Connor, still drowsy, had chosen a chill playlist…less screamo and more rock. It turned out that Evan knew every word to “The Bitch of Living.” He started off mumbling them, then ramped up to belting. By the time he reached “Looks so nasty in those khakis,” Connor was laughing so hard he had to pull over.

Then, Evan had stopped singing, which was a crime against fucking humanity. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to—”

Connor turned to him, grinning. “That was fucking amazing.”

When Evan hopped out of the car, enraptured by the park, Connor lingered to watch him. Evan wore a plain T-shirt and jeans, more casual than his usual outfit. The clothes hugged him tighter than his polo and khakis combo, too. Evan was across the parking lot by the time Connor stepped out of the car. Evan smiled at him when he approached and nodded toward the oak towering above them. “R-race you up?”

“Isn’t this how you broke your arm?” Connor took a flying leap toward the tree, wrapping his arms and legs around it.

“Yep,” Evan called from feet above him.

Connor shimmied up the trunk, remembering with sudden clarity how much he’d hated rope-climbing in middle school. He was terrible at climbing. Connor grabbed a branch, then another, then lost his footing, then regained his footing but couldn’t reach the next branch, and goddammit, he was _terrible_ at climbing. Then a hand grabbed his. Evan half-hauled him up onto a branch with one fucking arm.

“Damn you’re strong,” Connor murmured.

“Th-thanks?” Evan laughed, more breath than sound. He smelled like sunscreen, which reminded Connor of summertime and the beach and sex on the beach and shut the fuck up, brain.

They sat silently on the branch, watching the blue sky. Then Evan said, “I’m a h-huge jerk.”

Connor almost dropped off the branch. “What?”

Evan spoke so quickly it was difficult to understand him. “Y-you’ve never climbed a tree before, r-right? And just, do you even like trees? Do you find them interesting? I’ve been going on and on about my stupid things, and I…I don’t even know what you like!”

Connor reached out to lightly touch Evan’s shoulder. “I like listening to you talk about trees.”

Evan’s blush covered his whole face and the tips of his ears. “Oh. Good. That’s good.”

“Outside of that…I like art. Mystery novels. The Ongoing Concept”—at Evan’s confused look, he clarified—“They’re a band. Hamilton.”

“Everyone likes Hamilton.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “Tell that to my fucking father. He hates the 4th of July, too, and I’m like, fuck, there are shiny explosions in the sky. What’s not to like about that?”

Evan chuckled.

Connor’s eyes trailed across Evan’s face, and his lips quirked. “I like a lot of things.”

There was another pause, and Connor would go in for the kiss this time. But they were sitting fifteen feet in the air, and Evan seemed like the sort of person who jumps when startled. Connor settled for staring into Evan’s eyes.

“A-are we flirting?” Evan said. “’Cause I get the impression that maybe we’re flirting, but I can be sort of stupid about…things, so…I’m sorry. Please don’t be—”

Connor grabbed Evan’s hand, which involved reaching over the other guy’s lap because he wasn’t trying to hold a fucking _cast._ “I’m flirting. Are you flirting?”

The blush still hadn’t gone down. “Y-Yeah.”

“Cool. I would have been pretty disappointed if this wasn’t a date,” Connor said.

They lingered for a moment, caught in eye contact. Evan looked away first. “This place probably looks pretty…pretty nice in the fall. With all the c-colors and everything.”

“Yeah,” Connor said. “We’ll have to see it then.”

Connor leaned forward, eyes locked on Evan’s lips, and then lost his balance and _fell out of the goddamned tree._ But it was only like 15 feet, and Evan was beside him in an instant. Connor looked up at Evan’s worried brown eyes and knew with quiet certainty that he was in love.

As he dragged Evan down for a kiss, Connor wondered if it would be weird to take his therapist out for a celebratory drink.

**Author's Note:**

> Out of curiosity, does anyone identify with Connor here? Because I totally need a "I fail at romance, and why do I have so many exes when we never even dated???" buddy.


End file.
